Saturday, April 20, 2013

Song of Blades and Heroes

At first, I was very enthused by this set. It is true skirmish (each figure represents one person or creature) and requires very few figures (8-15 per side). They have a very clever system for activating figures. The player rolls 1 to 3 dice; rolling above a certain number allows the figure to perform 1 action. The player will roll activation for each figure in turn. However, if the player fails 2 or more rolls for a figure, his/her turn is over and the opposing player begins activation. This adds some tactical thought. Do I play it safe and roll only 1 die, which will automatically allow me to try to activate another figure, or do I go for broke and roll 3?

My enthusiasm began to wane a bit, as it seems that there are too many stats to worry about and that each figure's stats are tracked individually. Furthermore, I'm not sure if the movement system, which is integrally tied to the activation system, will convert well to a grid.

SBH offers a campaign expansion (Songs of Deeds and Glory), but it is primarily a system for generating random battles and determining rewards of victory or costs of defeat. Furthermore, it seems geared to campaigns with 3 or more players.